Mom, daughter convicted for defrauding state unemployment

TRENTON — A mother and daughter were handcuffed and taken away to prison today after a jury convicted them of ripping off New Jersey’s unemployment fund for $585,300.

Janice Allen, 55, and her daughter Janice Dilligard, 35, were locked up at the urging of Deputy Attorney General Phillip Leahy, who said both face up to 10 years in prison when sentenced in February.

The women, Newark residents, showed no emotion when the verdicts were announced, nor when Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier nodded to court officers to handcuff the pair.

They were convicted of theft and related offenses for taking advantage of lax rules and bureaucratic confusion to collect almost $600,000 in unemployment benefits with a string of bogus applicants and applications.

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Terry Dilligard II, son of Janice Allen and twin brother of Janice Dilligard, is awaiting trial on a similar but separate indictment accusing him as the mastermind of the scheme and his own theft of $1.5 million more from the state. It all allegedly occurred between 2007 and 2011.

Leahy, who was assisted in pressing the case by DAG Anthony Torntore, told the jury after the three weeks of testimony that the “electronic fingerprints” of both women were all over the computer record for investigators to find.

Over the years, Leahy said, the women became so confident they wouldn’t get caught they made it easy for the Jersey Department of Labor detectives.

Kevin Mitchell, the mother’s lawyer, said she shouldn’t be locked up because she’s a stroke victim who has always showed for court. The daughter’s lawyer, Andrew Duclair, also said his clients always made it to court. But the judge rejected the pleas.